PRESS RELEASE
Kevin Francis Gray
Alon Segev, Tel Aviv, 02 September – 28 October 2022
Alon Segev is pleased to announce the first solo show in Israel, of Irish artist Kevin Francis Gray. The exhibition presents figures, symbols and doctrines from Celtic mythology and local lore depicted in marble sculptures and wall panels – reiterating the artist’s enduring devotion to the Italian stone and natural convergence with his native origins.
Gray’s compositions are entities in a state of becoming. Forms transition from figuration to abstraction, travelling on the verge of recognisable shapes, while never crossing into graspable representations. Leading the use of marble down new routes, the works do not align with conventional expectations of the stone or the direction its sculptors have often ventured. Shapes and characters rise from the dense rock matter and shine in their sinuous silhouettes and fluid surfaces, eclipsing the quintessential hardness and stillness of the block. The material retains the finger-marks and touches of the initial modelling process, illuminating the trajectory the artist’s hands have carved. Sometimes impetuous and vigorous, other times delicate and smooth, Gray’s gestures are sunken in the stone, bringing it back to life with a breath of contemporary creativity. This line of investigation is the driving force behind the works that challenges the viewer to think differently in an effort to create a future that differs from the past.
Works gravitate towards themes of mythology and metamorphosis, pivoting back to the artist’s provenance and heritage. The concept of transition is personified in the character of Ceridwen, a white witch and goddess of transformation, rebirth, and inspiration who brews life-altering potions that give the ability to shape-shift and inspire knowledge and beauty in others. Gray’s characters are heightened to celestial bodies and legendary warriors, such as Manannán and Oisín, orbiting from Celtic traditions to modern spirituality, with literal representations of the luminaries, the sun and the moon, distinguishable in the metal bases supporting Ceridwen Standing and Young God Standing. Gray’s bodies are now young, sometimes anonymous divinities, and notably more elaborate configurations in these new transits. These figures present traits brimming with vulnerability and strength, anger and hope, dedication and combativeness. They champion the shifts purported by today’s youth. The viewer is in turn faced with this complexity, as they bear witness to the raw material and its sculptural transformation.
For this exhibition, Gray explores the stone in four of its white variants: Statuario, often the brightest, with warm undertones and fine veining; Carrara, with cold hues and occasionally grey veining; Paonazzo, with tints of cream and ivory and striking veining patterns; and Calacatta Caldia, with grey-taupe veins on creamy surfaces. The constellation of white marble sculptures and panels spread across the gallery shed light on the art of traditional sculpture making. From beginning to end, Gray’s practice travels back to original materials and techniques. Rarely seen today, marble productions are the ultimate manifestation of exceptional and laborious artisanal processes. Sculptures are born in soft clay, incorporating the artist’s gestures and touches, giving shapes to his ideas and ambitions. These brittle and fragile models transform into sturdy, durable plaster casts, which preserve the form of the works and act as templates for their finalised marble forms. Challenged to replicate the motion and softness encountered in clay, without losing the firmness and resilience experienced in plaster, Gray sculpts marble by trusting his eye and hand, rather than relying on pre-set rules and measures.
The results are fluid works on the point of transition or interchange that explore the body and the matter as a constantly shifting set of felt coordinates. This state of becoming is the dynamic movement and change that never ‘is’ but insists in between the ‘no longer’ and the ‘not yet’, pulling in both past and future directions at once.